Kathryn Bigelow’s latest film, A House of Dynamite, has made waves at the Venice Film Festival, showcasing a gripping narrative that explores the dire consequences of a rogue nuclear missile launch.
‘A House of Dynamite’ Exceeds Critics’ Expectations
Kathryn Bigelow‘s return to the big screen was always bound to be explosive. The early buzz from the Venice Film Festival indicates that A House of Dynamite — the Oscar-winning director’s first feature film since 2017’s Detroit — is worth the eight-year wait. This Netflix-released geopolitical thriller portrays the aftermath of a rogue nuclear missile launch aimed at U.S. shores. While this incident is fictional, its consequences feel frighteningly real.
Critics’ Reactions
That’s certainly how The Guardian‘s Peter Bradley felt in his five-star review of A House of Dynamite, which currently boasts an 87 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes and an 88 percent score on Metacritic. “I watched this film with translucently white knuckles but also that strange climbing nausea that only this topic can create,” he writes, referring to the film’s no-win nuclear scenario, which unfolds in three segments from different perspectives as the missile approaches Chicago.
“There are times when A House of Dynamite might seem melodramatic or stagey,” Bradshaw acknowledges. “Yet maybe that is how it feels in the highest reaches of power, with everyone looking and feeling like actors in elaborate costumes whose roles had only one purpose: to deter aggression, a purpose which is now obsolete. It is a big chill.”
RogerEbert.com’s Glenn Kenny also admires Bigelow’s depiction of an apocalypse. “As harrowing as the movie is, there’s real pleasure in experiencing how Bigelow orchestrates it all,” he notes. “And it’s educational too, maybe not in a way you ever wanted. Acronyms appear on the screen, and then the letters stretch apart, and words are filled in. For instance, SSNB stands for ‘Self Sufficient Nuclear Bunker,’ which you’ll want to buy after you see this movie.”
Writing for IndieWire, Ryan Lattanzio echoes Kenny’s sentiments, highlighting the numerous acronyms that populate the film. “[The movie] sometimes feels like a horror movie version of television’s Veep,” he observes. “Bigelow’s work is procedural to its core, and that this film is a speculative what-if is made all the more horrifying because of its banality.”
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Other critics offer more measured praise. While the BBC’s Nicholas Barber describes A House of Dynamite as “more riveting than most thrillers and more terrifying than most horror films,” he also criticizes the film for recycling “old tropes” from past disaster movies. AwardsWatch’s Mina Takla suggests that the film’s structure and deliberately open-ended conclusion might be a “turn off” for audiences expecting a more traditional thriller. “But this is the exact point of the film,” he argues. “It is not about an eventual result, but rather what led us there.”
At least one critic was not swayed by Bigelow’s nuclear nightmare. Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman calls A House of Dynamite “a self-consciously jittery high-end cautionary potboiler” with a “somber and responsible” tone that left him cold. “To be honest, I was surprised to see Kathryn Bigelow rely on so many of these breathless generic devices,” he adds. “A House of Dynamite stirs the pot of our fears, suggesting that the risk of a nuclear attack we can’t defend against is much greater than we’re accustomed to thinking. But do I actually trust what the movie is saying? Let’s just say that this is what a Netflix budget buys us.”
